The study also found that non-citizens make up more than
one-quarter of the population in 85 California cities, and that 28
percent of the state's noncitizens are Hispanic.

"It's really a harbinger of things to come, and unless we
start to address this issue, we're going to have a political apartheid
in California," said Joaquin Avila, the study's author and an
instructor at UCLA law school.

The study, based on 2000 census data, comes days after Gov.
Schwarzenegger repealed a law that would have allowed undocumented
immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.

"The distinction between citizens and noncitizens has been
seriously eroded over the past generations, and the only difference
left is the ability to vote. That's not a trivial thing," said Mark
Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in
Washington, D.C.

"A person who isn't a citizen yet is essentially shacking up
with America. It's important to the health of the body politic that
that difference be preserved."

Avila said the proposed amendment would not mandate the vote
for noncitizens, but would give local governments the latitude to allow
it if they choose. Any constitutional amendment would have to go to
voters.

The study also recommends holding conferences to discuss
noncitizens' voting status and including noncitizens on neighborhood
councils and other local community groups.

Audrey Singer, an immigration expert with the Brookings
Institution in Washington, said cities and school boards in some states
-- including Maryland, Illinois and New York -- already allow
noncitizens to vote in local elections.

Until the 1920s, nearly half of all local elections included
noncitizens -- but an immigration backlash after World War II sharply
curtailed the practice, Singer said.

San Francisco has become a city devoted to expanding the
meaning of all categories until none has meaning.

Citizen? Today, that term describes Americans who can register
to vote and serve on juries. But if a measure before the Board of
Supervisors is approved by city voters and becomes law, it will render
the term "citizen" but an antiquated notion in San Francisco.

The measure, introduced by Board of Supervisors President Matt
Gonzalez, would allow S.F. residents with children in public schools to
vote in the school-board election. While supporters say this is a
narrow measure designed to increase parental involvement in public
schools, there is every reason to believe it is the latest salvo in the
far left's push to blur any distinction between citizens and
non-citizens, as well as between illegal immigrants and legal
immigrants.

It doesn't matter if the state Constitution requires voters to
be citizens over the age of 18. When the Special City doesn't like a
law, it ignores it.

California State Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, told
the San Francisco Chronicle that he supports the measure because his
mother, who didn't pass the citizenship test and thus couldn't vote,
should have had a say in school-board politics. As he put it by phone
Thursday, the demands of raising a family and making ends meet kept his
mother from passing the test, but that shouldn't keep her from voting
for school-board members. Yee added, "It seems to me that we should try
to find ways to help parents be more engaged."

Did the law keep her from volunteering in school politics? No,
he answered. She "helped my campaign for school board. But realize it
is one thing to be involved in a campaign, it's another to actually
vote."

I'm sorry she didn't pass the test. But I don't buy Yee's
contention that the city can expand voting to non-citizen parents of
public-school children, and stop there. As Supervisor Fiona Ma noted in
a press statement, "This would open a Pandora's box of issues -- will
we allow non-citizens who ride BART to vote in BART-board elections or
non-citizen home owners to vote in bond measures?"

Yee also argued that he believed in granting the school-board
vote to "documented individuals." Nice try, but Yee can't run away from
the fact that the Gonzalez measure doesn't distinguish between legal
and illegal. As a supporter of the measure told me, it was too much of
an administrative challenge to ask poll workers to determine legal
residence. Also, there was little interest in distinguishing between
"undocumented parents of citizen children" and other parents.

Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies called
that "an enormous slap in the face to people who play by the rules, who
come legally and become citizens." Why bother if people who flout the
rules can vote?

A Gonzalez statement claims that it takes too long for
immigrant parents to become Americans: "Due to government red tape and
a long INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) backlog, immigrants
must wait an average of 10 years to become citizens."

Really? Sharon Rummery of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
said that while immigrants must be permanent residents for five years
to apply for citizenship -- only three years if they're married to a
U.S. citizen -- it now takes eight months after application to become a
citizen. The process is designed to teach new Americans about how and
why democracy works.

"Why have citizenship at all?" former California Secretary of
State Bill Jones asked. "Citizenship is the rite of passage to become
an American," Jones added. Immigrants who "don't become Americans,
they're just an extension of the country they come from."

A Gonzalez press release quotes an immigrant mother of two who
complains that it is "unfair" to make immigrant parents wait "10 years"
to become citizens.

It is unfair. It's also unfair that some people are born
American, and others are not. It's unfair some are born rich, and
others are not. It's unfair some are born beautiful, while others are
not.

The present immigration system isn't perfect, but it is
designed to allow a fair number of immigrants into the United States in
as fair a way as possible. The system is designed to produce new
citizens with an understanding and affection for their adopted country.

The Gonzalez measure, however, is designed to undercut that
goal by rewarding immigrants who break the law with the right to vote.
It is as if San Francisco City Hall set out to teach contempt for the
law to America's newest would-be citizens.